Last week on The Cut: Ears went! And calooh, Callay, we chortled in our joy! This week: who will crack under the pressure when the teams build airplanes?
The episode starts off in the standard fashion, with the teams returning from the Style Forum and getting un-ready. However, there is one big difference – instead of being sad for the person that left, they’re all HAPPY that Ears has gone. Oh, what a frabjous day for both them and us. Jessica mentions that she wishes that Liz had gone instead, but Ears being gone is juuust fine. And don’t we all agree?
The next morning, the nine remaining contestants arrive at an airport in a dramatic sequence that reminds me a little bit of the X-Men. Sadly, if these people were the X-Men, we would have some serious problems. Could you imagine them introducing Liz with the power to whine so much that people lose their hearing? Or Princess with the ability to write death-inducing poetry? It’s just not a good sight. They all line up near two gigantic, G-3 planes, and Tommy arrives in his usual, dramatic fashion. This week, according to Tommy, the teams will be painting on planes. Umm... okay? This challenge makes no sense to me. They’re planes! It’s not like anyone is going to go riding around in a custom designed plane. Well, at least, I know that I wouldn’t. Talk about useless. Can you even see something written on a plane when it’s in the air? I would assume not... anyways, the team choosers are Deanna and Chris C., and Deanna goes first because her team won last week. Her first pick is Wes, and I automatically realize that she’s planning on having the WesnDeannanShauna alliance intact for this challenge. Chris picks Rob first, and since he’s the painter, I’d say that he made a smart choice. Right? At the end of the day, Deanna has picked Felix, Wes, and Shauna, and Chris has picked Liz, Rob, and Jessica. Princess, being the odd woman out, automatically gets attached to team Deanna. The teams get ready to get to work, but WAIT! There’s a special social opportunity! This week, the people going on the trip will go on a shopping spree with Tommy and then will mingle on a yacht. Super wonderful, super wonderful. Nobody takes the offer from team Chris, as they need every person that they can get, and on team Deanna, Princess is picked. Oh no. Princess and Tommy leave to board their jet, and I sincerely hope that Princess erases all thoughts of poetry from her head.
In the meanwhile, the teams pow-wow in order to get some ideas on the table. Both Shauna and Liz are horribly sick, so they take this time to give their teams some ideas before they go to the doctor. Or, rather, Liz takes the time to give her team some ideas before she goes to the doctor – Shauna sits around, stares intently at whoever is speaking, and coughs some. Such an entertaining one, that Shauna is. Team Chris seems to be on the right track, with the Tommy globe on the tail. Team Deanna is throwing out a myriad of bad ideas, including Wes’ idea to have it painted like a bumblebee. Wes, please don’t go all Jacko on me. Please. Deanna finally comes up with the idea of grafitti, and, since Felix knows how to work with graffiti he takes the lead and sketches out their idea on paper. Soon, Shauna and Liz have to leave, and they both go off to the doctor, leaving their teams... FOREVER. *dun dun dun*
Over at team Chris, Rob takes a leadership position and starts to sketch out a plan for their plane. Rob begins to launch into a spiel about what his team is going to do and how they’re going to do it... only to suddenly be shot down by Jessica, who says that the plan for the plane “isn’t sexy enough”. According to her, “a plane should make you want to have sex.” I would have to agree with her – every time that I get on a plane, I start thinking about how much it makes me want to have sex. Except, no, not at all. Methinks that Jessica has a little plane fetish over here.
After a commercial break, Jessica still attempts to take a leadership position, and starts whining about how the bottom of the plane should be red, since it looks sexy. It’s a plane, honey. Sex + plane = noooo. Over on team Deanna, Felix has almost finished his sketch of the plane, and the team is rather impressed with what he’s come up with.
Back at the SoHo loft, Liz and Shauna are on lock-down, and can’t leave their little germ-infested bed room for 48 hours. During their time together, they discuss most of the other people in their group, and they appear to bond. Shauna? Bonding with someone aside from WesnDeanna? Amaaaazing.
Over in Florida, Princess and Tommy go on their sopping spree to Princess’ favorite store. Tommy pretty much picks out her outfits, but I will admit that she doesn’t look too shabby. Which is a step up from some days, where she looks like she just got through a hurricane. Her team, on the other hand, is having almost as much fun as she is. Or, rather, WesnDeanna are having almost as much fun as her, while Felix is working his little butt off. Speaking of his butt, both Wes and Deanna comment on how wonderful it looks whilst they spin in cool chairs that move around the floor of the building. Look at them, so hard at work. I’m amazed that they have an attention span long enough to work so hard, so long!
Back at team Chris, Jessica is still being horribly difficult, shooting down ideas left and right. As a result, team Deanna (ok, Felix) has already gotten about a fourth of the way through the painting process, while they are just getting ready to put some tape on the plane. To make matters worse, once the team is about half way done with painting the red on the bottom, Jessica decides that she hates the red because it’s with the blue, and wants the bottom changed to black. She also asks them to un-paint the nose, as it looks like a bulls eye. Thus, the team begins working on taking paint off in order to please Miss Minnesota, while the other team points and laughs at how little work they’ve done. Over at team Deanna, Felix asks for an artist to help with a caricature of Tommy, and WesnDeanna get right on it. Not that they wouldn’t, because they have absolutely nothing else to do.
Because team Chris isn’t quite as artistically skilled as you would expect, considering that Chris is a graphic designer and Rob is a painter, they hire some more artists to help them draw the tail. Huh? Can’t they do that – I dunno – themselves? Over on team Deanna, Felix is already getting to work on his caricature of Tommy, which doesn’t really look like Tommy, but at least he’s painting, which is a little bit more than I can say for the other team.
Back in Florida, Princess and Tommy are living it up on the yacht, and Princess... doesn’t screw up. At all. She’s very kind, very gracious, very outgoing, and her performance has so few blunders that the scene only lasts for about two minutes. Amazing. Simply amazing.
Back at the planes, team Chris is waiting for their decal specialist to come. They eventually arrive at 11:00 PM – two hours late. Oh, joy. They work through the night. And with one hour left, the teams put the finishing touches on their wonderful planes. Team Chris appears to have been helped by the extra man-power, as they finish with time to spare. Team Deanna isn’t as lucky, as they work until the very last second to get the final details worked out. Mr. Hilfiger comes to look at the planes and see how they look, and he has a generally blank expression on his face. He is a little shocked when he sees the caricature of himself on the plan, but that’s to be expected, as it doesn’t really look like him.
That night, it’s finally time for the style forum. It appears that Jessica is already prepared to point fingers, and Deanna is extremely confident that she’ll win, as usual. The teams arrive at the Style Forum, which is supposed to be the most dramatic one *ever*, so I’m expecting fireworks right off of the bad. However, instead of starting off with a cage match between the two teams, he begins his discussions by congratulating Princess on doing a wonderful job. He then asks Chris why he chose his team. He states that Rob is a color specialist, and Liz was a marketer. At this point, Liz tells Tommy that her and Shauna were out sick for the whole assignment, but that she still managed to give some input. When Tommy asks Chris what the concept behind the team’s design is, Chris launches into a concept that I just can’t understand. Something about art... and music... and entertainment... and fashion... it’s just too complicated. And what does Tommy have to do with art and music? Are we going to end the series by listening to his new song “Fashion Designer” while we see shots of his own, special art gallery? Jessica mentions that she is responsible for the black, and Tommy cuts her off in mid-sentence in order to switch teams. Deanna automatically mentions that their team didn’t need no help, accompanied by some finger snaps and a head bobble. Tommy takes issue with the caricature, saying that it doesn’t actually look like him. Good taste, Tommy, good taste. When Tommy asks the teams which one they would choose, Shauna gets the drama-ball rolling by saying that she’s tired of the Rob Walker style of art. Then, Rob shoots back by saying that graffiti isn’t original, and Jessica says that she can’t distinguish the word “Tommy” out of the graffiti. Deanna then is on the attack, saying that the other plane is even less legible and that their logos are in absolutely useless places, such as the bottom of the plane. Chris points out that the logo on the bottom is enormous, and then everyone suddenly starts yelling about how much the other team sucks until Tommy tells them to be quiet. It turns out that Tommy hates both of them, but he has to pick a winner, and he picks Team Deanna because of the logo on the tail. Team Chris has to talk with Tommy, and he drags Chris, Jessica, and Rob into the pit. Tommy mentions that Jessica’s black on the bottom is absolutely horrendous, and that Rob appears to be a one-trick pony. Rob defends himself by saying that he has many other talents, and Chris says that, although he hasn’t seen any of those talents, Rob deserves to stay so that we can see these talents. Jessica is automatically on the defensive, saying that Rob’s other talents haven’t been shown, while Jessica has stepped out of her own comfort zone. Tommy says that he hasn’t seen Jessica come up with a creative vision yet, and Jessica says that Rob should be eliminated because it was his time to shine. Tommy agrees, and asks Rob who should be eliminated. He, of course, says Jessica, and Jessica is back in the guillotine. Jessica mentions having so many ideas that didn’t go through, and Tommy says that she doesn’t have enough power to get the ideas through. Thus, Jessica is axed, and Tommy tells everyone to be less safe whilst Jessica goes galumphing away.
Next week: Liz gets yelled at! Wooooooohoooooo!!!
Do you know what poem I used in the first two paragraphs of my recap and the last paragraph? If so, e-mail me at boredsim133@yahoo.com . I’ll give you a cookie, I promise.